Let's Try This Again

I never kept a journal when I was a kid. No, I lied. I tried several times to keep a journal, either on my own or as part of a school assignment. I always thought it was cool. It seemed like a good way to get over my semi-adversarial relationship with written words.

Sometimes I would forget to write for a few months and then hide the journal away somewhere so that I would stop feeling guilty about not writing. Other times, I would reread what I'd written, realize how utterly boring it was, and then hide the journal away somewhere so I would stop feeling guilty about how bad of a writer I was. Most of the time, I'd get too busy with other stuff and stop writing, and the journal would get berried under all of the detritus from the rest of my life.

My desire to journal has gradually shifted into a desire to keep a blog. Despite the new medium, I encountered the same problems as before. I used to have one on Livejournal. That ended poorly. Then I started this one and didn't keep up with it. This seems like an ideal time to try again. Since I love organizing stuff, here's a (bulleted!) list of why:

• I just finished my PhD, so maybe I'll have more time to write. Also, I've changed url (it was previously dancingmathgradstudent).

• I also just got married to my beaux, Kraig, of 5+ years. Maybe, 20 years from now, I'll feel like looking back.

• Last but not least, I'm moving to Chicago in about a month. I got a lecturing position at Northwestern, so off I go, chasing the academic dream! I'll be farther away from my friends and family than I've ever been before, and maybe this will be a good way to keep them updated on the day-to-day (or week-to-week...) events of my life.

So here I go, with good intentions and budding optimism. I would, however, like to solicit advise from those of you who are accomplished bloggers and journalers, about how to keep myself writing. Should I set goals? Do I need to pick a theme? Should I worry about being interesting? Is there a way to keep this from morphing into a series of drawn-out Facebook status updates?